Goodbye Dolly - By Deb Baker Page 0,65

cop could have been Matt.

Her opinion of the detective was sinking as rapidly as a rock thrown from the summit of Camelback Mountain. He was probably gathering evidence to make his case and earn himself a big promotion, and he had chosen a brutal, cruel avenue to the top. Assaulting helpless indigents was as low as anyone could stoop.

So much for the men in Gretchen's life. Once this situation was firmly behind her, she vowed to distance herself from the entire male population and focus on her career. Men had already taken up too much of her time and energy, and the only thing she was getting for her efforts was disappointment.

Shouldn't she be home right this minute, answering business calls and repairing dolls? Piles of unfinished broken dolls didn't put food on the table, or give her the income necessary to get her own place. You're still living with your mother, she reminded herself. Time to grow up and move out. Gretchen entered the Biltmore Fashion Park with Nimrod riding in her purse and walked briskly through the exclusive mall until she found what she was looking for. Ricardo's Fine Jewelry.

Young, fashionably bejeweled women helped customers from behind resplendent display cases.

"Nimrod, hide," she commanded as she entered the store. Nimrod ducked down.

She strode past the glistening cases and toothy sales staff to the back of the store, where an elderly man with coke-bottle eyeglasses sat stooped over a cluttered worktable. "Can I help you?" he said, reluctantly glancing up from a Rolex watch he was repairing.

"I have a hypothetical question," Gretchen said, wondering how best to approach the subject. The truth would take too long to explain, and besides, he would write her off as a kook. She almost didn't believe what she was thinking. Okay, so a small fib was the best tactic. "A bet I have going with a friend."

He looked at her questioningly.

"If a little doll, a hollow doll, about this big," said Gretchen, holding her forefinger and thumb apart to approximate three inches, "was filled with diamonds, would it be heavy enough to alert anyone who handled it that something was inside?"

The jeweler frowned. At first, Gretchen thought he might dismiss her as crazy or--worse--a potential thief.

Maybe he had an alarm button under the table like a bank teller and was alerting the police at this very moment. After a long pause to size her up, the jeweler said, "Not necessarily. It would be relatively light, hard to detect by a casual observer. Even one who might hold it. That is, as long as the diamonds were secured so they weren't rattling around inside." He rose from the table. "Not a likely scenario though."

"Why not?" She felt Nimrod stirring in the bottom of the purse. He liked the game of hide, but he was easily distracted. Gretchen dug a liver snap out of one of her pockets and casually dropped it into the purse.

The jeweler looked through his magnification glasses at the purse, then over the top of them at her.

"Why isn't it likely?" she asked again.

"A doll filled with diamonds would be worth an immense fortune. Who would own that many diamonds?"

"How many diamonds could a doll that size hold? Hypothetically."

"Ten or twelve fine diamonds could fit easily into a doll that size and could be worth a million dollars or more, depending on their size, brilliancy, and clarity."

"So a doll filled with diamonds could be worth multimillions."

"Correct. Hypothetically, as you say."

"Thank you, you've been a big help."

Gretchen smiled at him broadly to express her gratitude.

"Well?" he said.

"Well, what?"

"Who won?"

For a moment, Gretchen didn't understand his question. Then she remembered the imaginary bet.

"I did," she said. "I won."

A million dollars or more. A fine, sparkling jewel of a motive. A million plausible reasons for murder.

Like winning the lottery.

Gretchen thought back on all the things that had happened to her in the last few days: the scorpion, the killer's use of her hobby knife, the messages that continued to arrive addressed to her. She sincerely hoped she would win. It was apparent that the killer thought she was close to either the diamonds or the truth--or both--and he was taking steps to stop her. She had to win. Or at the very least, come out of this unharmed. As she stepped out into the warm desert night, Gretchen opened the poodle-embroidered purse and praised Nimrod for remaining out of sight. His furry body bounced to the top of the purse, and Gretchen fed him another